The present invention relates to an air bag found in air bag equipment. The air bag is inflated by high pressure reaction gas from an inflator and protects the occupant when the vehicle is in a collision and in particular to a mounting portion of such an air bag.
The air bag equipment furnished on the fixed portion of the car body in front of a seat in a vehicle plays an important role in the protection of the occupant in the vehicle as it is inflated instantaneously in an emergency, such as a vehicle collision, by the pressure of reaction gas, released from an inflator fixed on the steering wheel or dashboard.
As shown in FIG. 7 and FIG. 8, the air bag 1 in a conventional type of air bag equipment comprises a first base cloth la constituting an upper wall and a lower wall, a second and a third base cloths 1b and 1c constituting left and right lateral walls, a ring-like metal fitting le disposed on the periphery of an opening 1d, through which reaction gas from an inflator (not shown) is introduced, and a fourth base cloth 1f to fix the ring-like metal fitting 1e on the periphery of the opening 1d. As shown in FIG. 9, the ring-like metal fitting 1e is made of a plate provided with an opening 1d' at its center.
By fixing this ring-like metal fitting 1e on a retainer 2, which is mounted on the fixed portion of car body such as a dashboard, the air bag 1 is mounted on the car body.
In such an air bag 1, the ring-like metal fitting 1e in planar shape is arranged in such a manner that its planar surface runs in the direction perpendicular to the direction of the introduced reaction gas. Therefore, it is unavoidable that ring-like metal fitting 1e is enlarged to all directions, i.e. upward and downward, leftward and rightward. The enlargement of the ring-like metal fitting 1e necessarily leads to the enlargement of the module of air bag equipment.
Also, in the conventional type air bag, the number of base cloths constituting the air bag is as many as 4, and this means that many working processes are required for manufacture.